


For appearances' sake

by Thebiwife



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, Jail, Masturbation, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 09:35:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22293859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebiwife/pseuds/Thebiwife
Summary: Alicia, feeling the frustration of being humiliated by her husband and wound up by her mother-in-law, turns to drinks with Kalinda to unwind.
Relationships: Alicia Florrick/Kalinda Sharma
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	For appearances' sake

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic in this fandom, on this account and on AO3 at all, so please bear with me! also ten years late to the fandom amirite, please comment if you are currently actively reading/writing, especially any alicia/kalinda fics. thanks!
> 
> also - this takes place after s1.05 but before s1.06 "conjugal". this fic follows an alternate timeline in which the conjugal visit from s1.06 can't (and ultimately doesn't) happen, as is the actual case in illinois.

# For appearances' sake

  
  


#### Stern, Lockhart and Gardner

“Why don’t you tell me when I do something right?” Alicia rolled her eyes at the supposed twenty-five year old investigator. _The nerve of that girl_ , she muttered, between gritted teeth, impatiently tapping the elevator button.  
  
“Alicia,” Cary nodded as he exited the elevator. “How’s Grace?”  
  
“She’s fine. Why are you interested in my teenage daughter?”  
  
“Oh, she answered the phone when I called you at home yesterday.”  
  
“You called me at home?”  
  
“You weren’t picking up your cell. I left a message with Jackie.”  
  
“You spoke to _Jackie!?_ ”  
  
“She didn’t pass on the message?”  
  
“Did she hell.”  
  
"Where are you heading?"  
  
"To visit Peter. Was it important, the message?"  
  
"No, it's fine, I'll catch you tomorrow."  
  
Cary’s interest in Grace, while it may have been entirely innocent, put the conversation she’d had with Grace earlier at court at the forefront of Alicia’s thoughts. _Was the prostitute my age?_ pinged back and forth between her ears. _Not your age, closer to Kalinda’s actually._ As she stepped into the elevator and Kalinda suddenly reappeared at her side, it dawned on her that she was just about old enough to be Kalinda’s Mom too. That’s if she was as young as she said she was. Alicia did have an inkling that she was lying.  
  
  
***  
  


#### Outside the Jail

Alicia took a deep breath of the cold Chicago air. She could still count the number of visits she’d paid to her husband on one hand. _Why come more than you have to?_ she thought to herself. _For appearances’ sake._ She wished she could have a cigarette, even though there really isn't any reason she can't at this point in time. It was Peter that hated her smoking, Peter that made her give up. Why should she still be tiptoeing around him when he's in jail, after what he's done to her? She takes her pack out of her bag, almost bringing the white stick to her lips when another visitor arrived. For fear of being recognised she slid the cigarettes back into her bag.  
  
The kids had been visiting with Jackie which, despite being opposed to the first, Alicia had allowed to continue to some extent; primarily to keep her mother in law quiet, busy and out of her hair. The more she was preoccupied with grandparenting, the less she was watching Alicia’s every move. She didn't even want to broach the subject of visiting Peter, but eventually Alicia did go along a few times with them, as a family, to _keep up appearances_ , which seemed to be the only reason she did anything these days.  
  
“Mrs. Florrick,” the guard said, nodding with recognition.  
  
“Just me today,” she sighed, showing him her ID.  
  
For the first time, she caused the metal detector to bleep and was strangely disappointed when the female guard asked her to remove her watch instead of frisking her. Would’ve been the most action she’d had since this whole debacle began.  
  
In the visitors' room Pete was in the farthest corner, the one nearest the gate back into the jail. Alicia weaved around the tables and chairs to the table where he was standing.  
  
“Alicia,” Peter nodded, standing to greet his wife. He leaned in to kiss her and she offered him a cheek.  
  
“Peter,” she barely articulated his name as he exhaled, taking a seat opposite his.  
  
“You seem stressed Alicia.”  
  
She exhaled again.  
  
“Alicia?”  
  
“Of course I’m stressed. I’m single-handedly keeping food on the table and a roof over our children’s heads. After you talked me into leaving my career behind fifteen years ago it’s not fucking easy getting back up that ladder on my own.”  
  
“You’re not on your own.”  
  
“Oh sorry, I have your name. Your baggage. Really helps me out.”  
  
“You have my mother.”  
  
“Your mother…” Alicia pushed her chair back from the table, rolling her eyes. “Your mother is telling the kids what she thinks I’m up to whenever I’m not home by seven, not remotely based on the truth. Yet she defends your actions and acts like the allegations we know to be true didn’t even happen. I can’t parent like this. I can’t live like that.”  
  
“She’s worried about the kids not having both of us around.”  
  
“And whose fault is that!? We were supposed to be a team. You were my rock.” Tears began to prickle her eyes; she pulled the face that everyone does when they're trying their damnedest not to cry. "It's already having a huge influence on Grace, she's so impressionable, she still thinks you're still her virtuous daddy who can do no wrong. "  
  
“I still can be. I'm here for you. I love you.”  
  
“No you can’t. You’re not there. And you caused this, all of this. I can’t do it.”  
  
“Trust me.”  
  
“I truly don’t think I can.” Alicia sighed heavily, wiping her face. “This is too much,” she began to stand up. “Sorry Peter.”  
  
“Alicia,” he stood up. The guard signalled a palm for him to sit back down.  
  
Going back through security was a lot quicker leaving before the visiting hours were over. The regular guards that knew her whispered amongst themselves as she casually waved goodbye.  
  
After calling her cab Alicia waited out front, pulled out and lit a damn cigarette and sent Kalinda a text message. ‘Drink? Usual place?’ Within seconds a reply beeped and lit up her phone. ‘Drinks on me.’  
  
  


#### The bar

Kalinda was past halfway done with her beer by the time Alicia arrived.  
  
“What you drinking?”  
  
“Scotch and soda.”  
  
The bartender nodded and Kalinda almost choked on her beer “Rough day?”  
  
“Rough year.” Alicia fiddled with a damp napkin, rolling the sodden tissue into balls as an anxious habit.  
  
The bartender brought two tequila shots as well as Alicia’s scotch. Alicia had already done the shot before Kalinda put her beer down.  
  
“You went to the jail just now right?”  
  
Alicia nodded. “Don’t know when I’ll next be back there.”  
  
“They don’t give you a loyalty card for repeat visits?”  
  
“Don’t see what perk that could provide.”  
  
“Shame they don’t have conjugal visits in Illinois.”  
  
Alicia knocked back her drink. “Sex is the last thing on my mind. Well, sex with _him_.”  
  
Alicia blushed. Kalinda laughed.  
  
“So you guys just outright stopped having sex after it all came out?”  
  
Alicia felt a jarring jump and a tingling in the back of her throat. “Kalinda!” She tried to exclaim but her name scarcely came out.  
  
“After the prostitute stuff came out?”  
  
Alicia thought she was joking and answered with a laugh.  
  
“And now that he’s in jail? Have you gone looking for it elsewhere? Is that why you’re always in the office late with Will?”  
  
“Kalinda, I’m stunned. You’re as bad as my mother in law.”  
  
"Diane already thinks you and Will are sleeping together, you may as well make the most of it." Kalinda finished her beer and pointed to the bartender for another drink for both of them.  
  
"Peter always thought I was sleeping with him back in college. We're just good friends." Alicia put her empty glass down.  
  
“You know what I don’t get? Why you stood by him. Peter, I mean.”  
  
“That’s what I used to think. About the other wives," Alicia stretched out onto the bar and leant on her elbow. "Easier to say than do.”  
  
“I saw you there on TV, standing behind him at the press conference, _The Good Wife_. See Alicia, I’m curious what happens...afterwards.”  
  
“After…? Jail?”  
  
“After the press conference?"  
  
"I hit him.”  
  
“You hit him?”  
  
“Hardly unbelievable.”  
  
“And after that? Did you even get a chance for anger-filled hate sex?”  
  
“He went to hand himself in. I don't _hate_ him.”  
  
"Shame you didn't get laid before he went.”  
  
“I'm hardly gagging for a conjugal." Alicia wasn't lying, she wasn't gagging to fuck Peter. But she could do with fucking _somebody_  
  
Kalinda sipped her beer again, Alicia's eyes fixed on hers. “I’m not the person to tell you this, but you really don’t owe him shit.”  
  
“What do you mean you’re not the person to tell me?”  
  
“That doesn't matter. But honestly, you don’t owe him a thing. Put yourself first."  
  
"How would you propose I do that?"  
  
"Sleep around. Buy yourself nice things. I could recommend a really good bullet vibrator small enough to keep in your wallet."  
  
"Kalinda, please."  
  
"Come on, I can tell you really need to get some."  
  
"I’m not exactly in a position to.” She took a sip of her drink and held her hand flat in the air, to demonstrate how low she was on her own list of priorities. “It goes kids, Peter, and the press, Jackie, work, colleagues, me.”  
  
Kalinda moved Alicia's hand back up six inches or so. “It should go like this: kids, Alicia getting laid, work,” she guided her hand back down. She shrugged on the last one, “fuck everyone else.”  
  
“Sadly, Kalinda, I’m not fucking anyone,” Alicia laughed, before realizing how tragic that must have sounded. "Oh God, why am I telling you this?"  
  
“Relax Alicia, we’re not in work now,” Kalinda raised her eyebrows, readjusting her posture to imply she had another prying question up her sleeve.  
  
"Kalinda, can we stop with the questions."  
  
“I’m just...interested.”  
  
“I would say the same, but you’re hardly forthcoming usually. It’s like the first time you came to my apartment. I confided in you that I was having issues with my son and you just ignored me. Now you’re all ask ask ask but it’s like I’m being interrogated.”  
  
“I don’t feel comfortable talking to you about parenting. I don’t have any experience in that area. You’re old enough to be my mother.”  
  
“Oh, because you’re 25?” Alicia had known she was lying since the day she'd said it.  
  
Kalinda nodded, sipping her drink to hide her laugh.  
  
“And yet you’re more than happy to probe me about my sex life?”  
  
“Your dirty laundry is all over the press anyway, I’m merely... doing background research on the day’s _hottest_ topic.” She slurred the word hottest.  
  
“I’m not a hot topic,” Alicia blushed, trying not to feel flattered.  
  
Kalinda shrugged. “I’m a closed book.”  
  
Not sure if it was the mix of hard liquor or her true feelings, Alicia refocused her vision on her colleague. She was in the same red pleather jacket she wore at least half of the time, a low-ish cut top. Her make-up and hair, as always, was perfectly executed to highlight her perfect jawline and glossy lips. Taking another sip of her scotch, Alicia shuffled uncomfortably in her seat, growing a yearning inside her for a touch to her core. The out of place grime music in the bar echoed in her ears as the length of silence between her and Kalinda grew. She bit her lip, lusting after her friend. “I wish you weren’t so private,” she whispered.  
  
“Sorry?” Kalinda squinted and leant forward, struggling to hear.  
  
“I have to go.” She quickly downed the rest of her scotch and headed straight for the door. Hesitating for a moment at the exit, instead of heading straight outside, she took the door to the right into the bathroom.  
  
Behind a locked door she sat down in the stall, trying to breathe deeply, feeling the stirring between her legs only increase. _What is wrong with me?_ she thought to herself. _Kalinda? Really?_ Alicia didn't even know if Kalinda likes women, although she did have her suspicions. It was also not exactly public knowledge that Alicia herself was bisexual. Years of Peter's jealousy of Will made her entire love life seem to tie up into a bow around heterosexuality, the patriarchy of both society and her relationship with Peter keeping the rest of her sexual history under wraps.  
  
Half laughing, half in complete astonishment, she hiked up her pencil skirt and tucked her black cotton panties to one side. Breathing deeply, she posed two fingers at the entry to her centre. She was wet. Wetter than Peter ever got her by trying.  
  
She stroked herself towards her clit and began to rub her fingertips in concentric circles. As they grew dry she dipped inside and groaned as she spread out her own lubrication further across her labia. With her other hand she steadied herself against the greasy laminated dividing wall, trying to contain her breathing so not to draw attention to herself. She felt a moan coming as her stirring grew more intense, almost to the point of climax. Struggling to contain herself, she heard a flush from another stall and took the opportunity. She bit the inside of her lip to restrict what noise came out. She grunted, a low-pitched noise she'd never heard herself make before. As she heard the door to the bar open to echoing music and then close she composed herself. She was safe, no one had heard.  
  
She washed her hands six or seven times, near laughing in disbelief at her behavior. Looking at her eyes straight in the mirror and fixing her hair, she gave herself an internal pep talk, the way she would be prepped for the press.  
  
 _Mrs. Florrick is an honest woman.  
  
Alicia does not get turned on by women, she is loyal to her husband.  
  
Kalinda is a colleague and not an object of lust.  
  
A Good Wife does not masturbate in public restrooms. _  
  
She doubted the press would manage that subject matter quite so diplomatically.

As she left the bathroom Kalinda was leaving the bar. Letting a group of college-age students pass ahead of her, Alicia held Kalinda’s gaze far too long to be coincidental.  
  
“See you tomorrow,” Kalinda whispered as they filed out side by side, pulling on Alicia's skirt. No idea how much she'd exposed herself in the last ten seconds, she strode out of the bar with her head held up confidently, remnants of her orgasm resonating in her core.


End file.
